re: Purple Jerseys when the temperature is 92 degrees

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... people claim that white is the ideal way to keep cool in the summer. When we see white, we're seeing the combination of all possible visible light. This means that white clothing reflects a great deal of wavelengths of energy coming in. This means it should reflect the sun's rays back, instead of letting them cook us. And that's perfectly correct.

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Except that this explanation is also incomplete. Heat is not just coming in off of the sun. It's also coming off a person's own, sweating, warm-blooded, mammalian body, which is a lot closer than the sun is. When all that body heat hits the white clothing covering it, it gets reflected right back towards the body. When we wear white, we cook ourselves.

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The best color to keep cool in the heat, it turns out, is to wear black. Black absorbs everything coming in from the sun, sure. But black also absorbs energy from the body instead of reflecting it back.

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